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Obama’s Climate Betrayal

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Thus is the title of Elizabeth Kolbert’s excoriation of the Obama Administration for fighting European attempts to regulate airline emissions. Rather than support European leadership on the issue, the Obama Administration is threatening a trade war against European nations.

Nowhere has Obama been more disappointing than on environmental issues. This is precisely the kind of issue where the executive can provide leadership. Yet Obama has been reticent to issue many strong environmental regulations or to protect land. Beginning with his appointment of Ken Salazar as Secretary of the Interior, continuing to his opening the east coast to offshore drilling without getting a single thing in return on climate change legislation from the Republicans, and now opposing regulating airline emissions, Obama has been an environmental disaster for a Democratic president.

Like on many issues, we should not look back to Bill Clinton as a better Democrat on the environment. He probably was, but only in his last year. As with labor and other consistuencies, Obama has continued a string of Democratic disappointments. Certainly the legislative climate is not conducive to leading on the airline emission issue, but Obama could also issue executive orders, craft regulations, or even do nothing. Instead, he is following the bidding of the airline industry, continuing America’s role as the climate bad guy of the planet.

Kolbert:

It’s pretty much impossible to imagine how the world can reduce the risks of climate change without imposing some sort of emissions limits, and airline emissions seems like as good a place to start as any. If the Administration disagrees with the European plan, then it would seem to be under a heavy obligation to propose its own. All it’s doing now is shilling for the airlines. Is this any way to run a planet?

Indeed.

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